She went ahead and snapped a picture of the storefront to send to them, by way of more explanation. Then she had nothing else to do, so it was time to return to her little apartment, brew that second cup of coffee, and dig out her paperwork. If she was lucky, somewhere in the small print, she’d find she was covered for whatever yesterday’s debacle qualified as.
She opted to turn her radio on for the two-mile drive, in search of something to occupy her mind. The morning host spent the duration of her drive reporting about a missing woman from the nearby city.
Jenna frowned as she listened. He was talking about a college girl in her early twenties, casting shade on the boyfriend who’d reported her disappearance and the police who hadn’t labeled him a suspect, and simultaneously making ominous comments that had the hair on her neck standing up. It had only been a couple of weeks earlier, she was pretty sure, when she’d caught wind of a different missing person’s report. Different city, closer to two hours away, and she couldn’t remember that woman’s age.Younger than me.And also, female. She’d never heard anything about the woman being found, the case being solved—anything at all. It was nerve-wracking how easily a person could just disappear.I could disappear like that.
It was an unsettling thought that made her grip the steering wheel a little tighter.
She was a business owner, sure, so she had employees who would notice her absence. But there was a difference betweenthat and having people who would care. Her family would care, but they weren’t local. They’d moved away years earlier. It was just her, on her own, for better or worse.
Better. Definitely better.
Jenna switched off the radio as she pulled up to her drive, agitation sharpening her movements. Most of the time it was better, anyway. No solution was perfect. More importantly, she had too many time-sensitive things to be dwelling on. She didn’t need that shit in her head.
Chapter four
Homecoming
“I’ve known you forlike sixteen goddamn years, and not once have I seen you look at a woman the way you looked at the bakery lady yesterday. If you don’t go after her, I’ll beat your ass. Just as soon as I get out of this bed.”
Lance’s mini-lecture replayed in Jon’s head as he rolled back into Misty Glades. There was no good way to spin that accurate assessment, even if the situation weren’t so cut-and-dry. Being called out by an ace commitment-phobe, being threatened bya man unable to leave his hospital bed, either one of those things was a sucker punch to Jon’s pride. The combination was shameful.
Though it had left a foul taste in Jon’s mouth to leave Lance to himself in that hospital, the man insisted he’d be fine. And like it or not, Jon had business—apparently a variety of business—to take care of in Misty Glades. Including figuring out whether or not he’d make his hometown his new homebase.
He owed it to Tom. The older, one-armed airman had gone and skirted a few obnoxious technicalities in the paperwork for him at the dealership because about a decade past, Jon and his recon crew had saved Tom’s life. The pilot had gone down well out of scanning range, and taken serious injury in the crash. He was lucky to have survived, though he ultimately lost most of his right arm and a chunk of his ear. Stubborn bastard had, apparently, decided to keep working after going civilian and earned himself a managerial position at the same dealership Jon had gone to that very morning.
Because it was small fucking world.
And because it was also a frustrating one, Jon would have been forced to leave empty-handed for the mere fact of having no definable residence—except that a wandering manager had recognized his face.
"I’ll just put my address down. All you need is a place for bills to go and it’s an easy change down the road.” Tom raised a wrinkled smile across the desk, the shine in his eyes too raw and too open to possibly be any sort of practiced sales pitch. “I can see in your eyes you want to say no, and I respect that. But you said yourself you’re between places, yeah?”
Jon ground his teeth and inclined his head with a grunt.
Tom’s expression held. “You saved my life, Johnson. I’ll never know how the hell you found me in that jungle, and I don’t care. If it weren’t for you, I’d have bled out and been eatenby scavengers. If I was lucky. My wife’d be a widow and our youngest wouldn’t exist. The damn least I can do is lie and say you’re crashing on our couch while you find a place for yourself. It’s no big deal.” Here turned his focus to the papers spread out before him.
Jon unlocked his jaw. “That’s a hell of a show of trust. We both know I was just doing my job.” He said the words because they were true, but he knew equally well he’d feel the same if their positions were reversed.
Tom chuckled. “Pretty sure I can trust the Marine who found me in fucking nowhere and carried me on his back to safety well enough for something like this.” He tapped the paper with the tip of his pen briefly. “Not like I’m giving you my bank info.”
There hadn’t been any winning that argument. It was a favor Jon needed, no matter how much he hated it, and apparently one Tom had been downright eager to offer. It only drove home all the things Jon still needed to figure out.
Too much remained undecided. Jon couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone so long with no direction.
That was probably why he went straight to the old house. He didn’t know if his parents still lived there, if they’d sold or moved into his grandfather’s place, or if they’d left Misty Glades entirely. So, he parked the truck he’d spent most of the morning signing papers for at the curb, cut the engine, and gave himself a few seconds to analyze the property while he steadied himself.
Something akin to nerves twisted his stomach. He had such few good memories of that specific, single-story home. It didn’t even hurt to see that no one had kept up with caring for the thing. The grass was a little too tall, yet also half-dead. Weeds in the form of bushes had overgrown his mother’s attempt at a flower bed. A pair of outdated campaign signs sagged in the yard, weather-beaten revealing all at once. A vehicle Jon didn’t recognize occupied the driveway. But it had been the better partof two decades, and the family car had been older even back then, so an unfamiliar vehicle was hardly a surprise.
Jon rolled his neck, pushed out a hard breath, and climbed from the truck. He had too much shit to deal with to be sitting around succumbing to old, childhood fears. If his father was there, and his father started shit—which he would—Jon could deal with that. He didn’t have to bow his head and take it anymore.
He clomped up the front steps, frowning at the way each stair creaked under his weight. At least the porch held. The door shuddered under his fist when he knocked.
Then he held himself still and waited. At the ninety second mark, he knocked again. He was debating knocking a third time when he finally heard movement and the tell-tale slide of a deadbolt.
Somehow, he still wasn’t fully prepared to find himself face-to-balding head with the man who’d made it so easy to leave everything behind at seventeen years old. George Johnson had lost a couple inches of height and stood with a hunch Jon didn’t remember. His lighter brown hair had thinned and mostly disappeared from the crown of his head. In contrast, his once-imposing figure had taken on a pear shape, his gut hanging over the band of his pants. And for all the changes, that dark look of disdain Jon remembered so well didn’t seem to have lost a beat.
“Still alive, I see.”
Jon let his frown deepen. “Despite the rumors you’ve been spreading.”
